


Tout Ensemble

by LydianNode



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Gen, Language, Recording ANATO, and Freddie is a genius, brotherly bickering, they are all so bloody stubborn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 06:21:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19371166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LydianNode/pseuds/LydianNode
Summary: Tout Ensemble means "all together," but also refers to parts that are assembled to form a whole.Abilities and tempers are stretched to their limits during the recording of "A Night at the Opera." John isn't sure exactly why any of this is happening, especially having to learn the double bass for "'39." But he's going to learn.Freddie rolled his eyes. "Oh, for fuck's sake. Of course we could bring in a ratty old tap dancer and someone who plays trumpet. We could get a bassist and a harpist in from the Phil. But where's the meaning in that? What do we LEARN from it?"The words left John's mouth before he had a chance to weigh them in his mind. "What do YOU learn from making US do things like this?"





	Tout Ensemble

Ridge Farm, 1975

 

There it stood, as out of place at a rock and roll rehearsal space as the chickens in the yard and the kitchen just behind the piano: a beautiful Lyon and Healy pedal harp.

"The red strings are Cs, the black ones are Fs. What's so hard about that?" Freddie's question rang through the studio as Brian stared dolefully at the instrument.

"What about these?" Brian asked, poking one of the pedals with his toe.

"I don't have a fucking clue, darling. But you're so clever, you'll figure it out."

John couldn't stop the grin that began at one corner of his mouth and spread slowly across his face. At last, some payback for Brian's request for double bass on his weird sci-fi skiffle track. He thought about that instrument, his nemesis, leaning against a corner of his room in the basement, then he turned and spoke in an imitation of Brian's most annoying _I'm instructing you_ tone of voice. "It's just a piano turned on its side with the unison strings missing and no way to tell what notes you're playing without looking at them."

"Not overly helpful, Deacy," muttered Brian.

"As helpful as when you told me that the double bass is the same as a bass guitar, only the notes are further apart and there aren't any frets."

His grin grew even wider as he saw Brian's face fall. _Take that, arsehole.  
_

"Don't feel too bad," chimed Roger from where he stood in the doorway, a cigarette dangling languidly from his bottom lip. "How many thousands of quid have I put into my kit, just to end up tapping thimbles and trying to make a fucking loo roll sound like a muted trumpet?"

"Harmon mute, specifically," Freddie added. He gave Roger a look that clearly said _And you're supposed to remember that by now._

"I'll trade you," groused Brian. He picked up the rubber tuning key and attached it to one of the tuning pins, turning gently as he plucked one string. "This will take me most of the day unless I can use the Stroboconn. Who's got it right now?"

"I do." John pointed to his "area" of the studio. "Use it in good health, mate." With a grunt he hoisted himself out of his chair and joined Roger in the doorway. "Freddie? Let's leave him with it."

"One second," Freddie said, holding up a finger and smiling at Brian. "I'm not totally taking the piss on this, dear. I think you'll be magnificent. Just what the song needs." He patted Brian on the arm and walked quickly to where the others were waiting for him. "I'll be back to check on you in a few hours."

Even as the door closed, John could hear Brian's heavy sigh and the "Oh, fuck" that went along with it.

Roger lit a new cigarette off the end of the old one, which he ground out with his heel. "Going down the pub?"

"If you two are," Freddie said with a backwards glance to the studio doors. "Deacy?"

"God, yes." He wanted a drink. Several, if he were being honest with himself. He trudged along the path behind Roger and Freddie, who were engaged in an animated discussion of nickel versus brass thimbles for what Freddie called "the tap dancing portion" of his music-hall ditty.

John didn't care for the song at all, so he tuned out the talking and focused instead on the problems with playing the double bass, so like and yet so unlike his beloved electric basses. He'd been flummoxed by the two different bows until Brian - of course, it had to be Brian, who OF COURSE had studied violin and Knew These Things - had pointed out the differences.

 _The bows? One's French and the other's German, Deacy._  
_So, I've got the Franco-Prussian war going on in here?_  
_French is held overhand, German underhand, but don't bother with those - pizzicato is all you need. That means plucking the—_  
_I fucking know that, Brian!_  
_No need to bite my head off..._

The argument, short and petty as it had been, played over and over in John's head. Just what he needed, a pointless pissing contest playing on an endless loop. He grimaced, paying no attention to the barman's request for his order.

"Deacy, darling, do you or do you not want a drink?"

John blinked rapidly. Freddie was staring at him, head cocked to one side, eyes mirthful but also a bit concerned.

"Vodka tonic, please" John said quickly, flashing a smile at the impatient barman. "Sorry. Miles away," he told Freddie and Roger.

"We could tell that," Roger replied as he lifted his beer bottle in a simple toast. "We've all been a bit..."

"Preposterous?" put in Freddie, reaching past John to pick up his own drink. "Obstreperous? Intransigent?"

"No wonder you always kick our asses at Scrabble," Roger muttered into the mouth of his bottle.

John ran a hand through his hair. It felt sticky, doubtless because of the well water at the farm. He sighed and took a long sip of his drink, the warmth of the alcohol contrasting sharply with the feel of cold ice against his mouth. "Maybe. But there's a reason for it. We're all feeling a bit out of our depth right now, Fred."

Freddie's lips curved upward in a shrewd little smile. "That's excellent news, dear," he said as he finished his drink and waved the glass around to order a second.

"What? Why?" Roger's wide-eyed inquiry perfectly echoed John's unspoken question.

"Cheers." Freddie tipped his glass toward the other two before drinking half the contents in a single pull. "Why do YOU think?"

"You're trying to embarrass us?" Roger set his bottle down with a sharp _thwack_ of glass on wood.

John chimed in. "Or else you want to drive us mad by having us do what we should just hire someone to do FOR us?"

"But it's more fun this way!" Freddie insisted.

Roger snorted. "Fun? For whom?" He turned to John and raised an eyebrow. "Are you having fun with two instruments you've never played before? 'Cause I know that using rubbish instead of my own kit is a rollicking good time!"

Freddie rolled his eyes. "Oh, for fuck's sake. Of course we could bring in a ratty old tap dancer and someone who plays trumpet. We could get a bassist and a harpist in from the Phil. But where's the meaning in that? What do we LEARN from it?"

The words left John's mouth before he had a chance to weigh them in his mind. "What do YOU learn from making US do things like this?"

Roger's eyebrows shot up and he busied himself with ordering another round. John felt his face flushing under Freddie's dark-eyed scrutiny. Freddie looked him up and down, calmly, taking small sips of his drink without saying anything. Roger handed John a fresh glass, nudging his shoulder as he walked past and hopped up on a barstool.

"Do you think this is a power play, darling?" Freddie inquired. His voice was cool, detached, giving nothing away other than the question itself.

"You tell me," John answered. He clinked his glass against Freddie's. "Brian and I have to learn new instruments. Roger has to play music on everything BUT instruments. What, exactly, are you doing differently from usual?"

"Fuck, John, take it down a notch," murmured Roger with a nervous glance at Freddie.

Freddie's expression didn't change, the tiny smile still playing around the edges of his mouth. "I'm a rock and roll singer, in case you hadn't noticed, but on this album I'm doing music hall, jazz, even opera. They aren't new instruments because, when you're a vocalist, you can't GET a new instrument. You have to learn to change the one you're born with. If only I COULD pick up a new voice whenever I needed one, darling, my life would be so much simpler."

Turning even redder, this time with embarrassment rather than irritation, John ducked his head, shaking it so that his hair would partly cover his face. With a light chuckle, Freddie stepped forward and tucked the hair back behind John's ears. "You learned that trick from Brian," Freddie said quietly. "Ever wonder what else you could learn from him? He's picked up so much from you." At John's disbelieving huff, Freddie added, "Seriously, have you heard how he threads his parts through and around yours now, instead of playing over them the way he used to? Have you heard the melodies he does nowadays, not just giant chords, high up the fretboard? That's how YOU play, darling. He's matching his style to yours."

"Oh." John finished his drink quickly and set the glass down next to Roger's beer bottle. "I, uh, mostly try to stay with Roger."

"And I follow you and Brian, but mostly Freddie," Roger said. His brow was slightly furrowed with a combination of alcohol and thought.

Freddie slung an arm around John's shoulders. There was always a unique, comforting scent about him, brilliantine and vetiver and something pleasantly warm that radiated from his flesh. "Why do you suppose I have you playing the piano on your song? It's not that I hate Wurlitzers—well, I do, actually, because they sound GHASTLY—it's because it will mean more if you do it."

"You know," Roger said slowly, "Brian could probably do the double bass stuff himself. He's got the hands for it and everything. But he trusts YOU, Deacy. He knows you'll do right by his little space opera."

"You've got it, darling!" Freddie crowed, blowing a kiss toward Roger. "You play the drums like no one on earth, but learning how to make found objects into instruments is making you even more creative. Those tap-dancing fingers are going to be fantastic on my song, you just wait."

"Actually?" Roger stood up a little unsteadily, but his smile was beatific. "I don't want to wait. Can we try a couple of things in the studio before we turn in for the night? I've got an idea about some rhythms."

"I thought you'd never ask!" Freddie flung more cash on the bar and began striding purposefully toward the door. "Come on, let's all try something new!"

John followed along. His head was buzzing, mostly from what he was figuring out but also because of the speed at which he'd consumed two stiff drinks. He stretched his left hand, looking at the space between his fingers and imagining where the notes would go on the double bass to be perfectly in tune.

When they got back to the farm, Roger and Freddie immediately went into the control room. The day's detritus was scattered over the console: thimbles, cardboard, tissue paper. Junk. But when Roger put thimbles on his first and middle fingers and began scuffing them across the table in a slow soft-shoe rhythm, the light in his eyes and the joy in Freddie's expression were priceless.

Smiling, John decided to leave them to their adventures. He closed the door softly as he entered the rehearsal studio. He expected to hear angelic arpeggios on the harp—surely Brian could master the instrument in the time it took mere mortals to chug a few drinks—but what he heard instead was soft grumbles of pain and the sound of wrappers tearing.

John peered around the acoustical shells and found Brian sitting dejectedly on the harp stool, the studio's first aid kit at his feet. He was surrounded by bandage wrappers, a dozen or more, and he was struggling to get one around a finger. John couldn't understand why until he realised that all ten of Brian's fingers were red and raw.

"Ouch!" he called. "You've really done a number on yourself, haven't you?"

Brian blinked at him a couple of times, his puffy, red eyes betraying that he had shed frustrated tears. He flicked yet another ruined bandage to the side when it stuck to itself instead of him. "Fred would expect nothing less," he said drily.

"You'd expect nothing less from yourself. Here, let me." John lowered himself to the floor, sitting tailor-fashion as he pulled a bandage out of the box. He peeled the wrapper back and carefully applied it to Brian's left index finger. "You bleeding anywhere?" he asked.

"Right hand, a little bit. I think it's stopped." He tipped his head back, gazing at the nicotine-stained plaster on the ceiling. "I wish I could use picks on this. A lot less bother."

"And a lot more broken strings." John affixed bandages to the rest of Brian's left fingertips, then turned the right hand over. "That's fresh; you're still bleeding. We should put something on those." He fumbled around with the first aid kit and found a bottle of Bactine. "This will help with the pain and keep you from getting an infection."  
  
"I don't need that; I'm fine," Brian complained, but John cut him off with a stern glance and started spraying the antiseptic across Brian's fingertips.

"Not that I don't trust you, but I remember what happened the last two times you said you were 'fine.' The first time you went yellow and your arm was half off, and the second time your stomach was about to explode."

Brian dropped his gaze to the floor.

"If you end up in hospital again, do you have any idea what Freddie would do to you?" John put the last of the bandages on, then sat on his heels and peered up at Brian. "Come to think of it, do you have any idea what Freddie will do tomorrow when he sees you all bandaged up?"

"He'll kill me for not telling him," sighed Brian. "Then he'll kill you for not telling him."

For a few seconds, John considered calling Freddie out of the control room just to get it over with. Freddie could be the most overprotective mother hen in the world, especially when one of "his" boys was hurt. Normally it might be fun to inflict Freddie's agitated fussiness on Brian, but not tonight, not when Brian had spent hours trying to learn such a difficult instrument.

"Tell you what," John said as he got up and stretched, "let's work on your space song tomorrow. The percussion, guitar, and guide vocal are ready to go so it'll just be us, and we can keep Freddie in the booth or off somewhere, writing."

Brian rose, flexing his bandaged fingers. "Not a bad idea. I think my left hand will be okay by morning, but the right...I should rest it a bit. I wouldn't mind singing, though, Deacy." He turned to John, and the little smile he gave seemed almost shy. "I shouldn't have made such a thing out of using a stand-up bass—that was a bit much, wasn't it? You can play your Fender, if you'd rather."

_What do we learn from it?  
_

John looked at Brian again, seeing past the exhaustion to a certain intensity in his eyes, the one that was always there when he'd created something exciting that he couldn't wait to show the others. Roger had that same light when he and Freddie were experimenting in the booth.

 _It will mean more if you do it._  
  
There was an instrument waiting for John in his little basement hideaway, and suddenly he wanted nothing more than to practice on it. He had something to learn, after all. More importantly, he had something to contribute.

_He knows you'll do right by his little space opera._

"Just wait and see," he said, beaming at Brian for a moment before heading into the glorious unknown.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this story came from Freddie's quote about Brian being "in tears" over how hard the harp was. Then I thought about John, doing piano AND double bass, and that's when I started writing.
> 
> I have a Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/lydiannode — come and say hi!


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